Thursday, April 28, 2016

Nogas Island, Antique

As a continuation of
our summer escapade in Antique, we went to Nogas Island, an island situated
across Anini-y. It was a 15-20 minute boat ride from the mainland and is said
to be an environmental sanctuary. Legend has it that Nogas is the other-half of
Aniny-y. They were lovers separated by an enchanted mermaid because the latter,
despite the help she has given to defend the love of the two lovers, wasn’t
invited to the wedding. These made the mermaid mad so she cursed the two to be
separated forever by the sea.

Anyway, the island is
actually beautiful. The water is so clear that you can see through what is
behind at the bottom. The sand is also white with broken corals and rocks. This
is the reason why many people flock to Nogas Island via Siraan. There are
available day cottages as well that made me wonder if the local government
waived the island as a protected island sanctuary. A lot of people were
actually there taking a swim, bringing their own food and sadly, leaving some
of their garbage.

The island has lush
trees surrounding a watchtower. There is also a trail of kalachuchi trees
leading to the tower which is a popular “selfie” site. When we went there, the
tower was closed (and perhaps ordinary people weren’t allowed to climb up there).
I thought that this is the only site that we can visit on the island but to my
surprise, the trail extends deeper in the woods. While my coteachers went back
as soon as they reached the tower, one of my colleagues and I decided to why
not go deeper in the woods since we saw another trail. There we saw more trees,
some perhaps were century old. We saw a large balete tree which occupies about
50-100 square meters. Some people climbed up to take a photo while we were just
contended to look at them being scared of whatever enchanted creatures living
in there…hehe…Anyway, as we went following the trail, we were thinking to go
back as we might get lost. I jokingly said that we can’t survive having only a
“Nova” junkfood with us and perhaps there are cannibals lurking behind the
woods. Good thing we saw a family also following the trail and we tag along
with them. The floras in the woods are quite unique that some of them I only
saw for the first time. Of course, we couldn’t help but to take selfies with
these wondrous works of nature.

Our boat went back
after an hour to fetch us. I realized that my experience at Nogas made our
Siraan summer trip more enjoyable. If it we weren’t for our Nogas Island trip,
our stay at Siraan could have been less enjoyable.